UPA Gets BSY Gift

The exit of former chief minister B.S. Yeddyurappa from the BJP is perhaps the single biggest factor that will have an impact on both the state Assembly elections in Karnataka in 2013 and the Lok Sabha elections in 2014. So much so that the BJP's "Southern Gatewayâ€�, as Karnataka was called in 2008, is likely to buck the nationwide anti-UPA trend and return quite a few Congress candidates to the Lok Sabha. A survey by Nielsen Company for India Today has revealed that 20 of Karnataka's total 28 seats could go to the Congress.

Yeddyurappa, who quit the BJP in November 2012 to form his own party, the Karnataka Janata Party (KJP), has always been the party's mainstay by virtue of the fact that he is the undisputed leader of the single-largest community in the state, the Lingayats. Comprising the almost undivided vote of 17 per cent of Karnataka's six crore population, the Lingayats helped the BJP secure 110 seats in the 224-member state Assembly in 2008. Their sole wish to see Yeddyurappa as the chief minister was fulfilled.

But with Yeddyurappa's exit, the Lingayats are undecided about who to vote for. While some will move their loyalty to the KJP, some will continue to support BJP's present Chief Minister, Jagadish Shettar, also a Lingayat. And if the upbeat Congressmen are to be believed, a part of the Lingayat vote is swinging back to the Congress.

This has naturally hit the prospects of the BJP in both the forthcoming elections. Riding on Yeddyurappa and the Lingayat wave, Karnataka had voted for the BJP in 2009, giving the party an unprecedented 19 seats from the state in the Lok Sabha election. This was at a time when the rest of the country voted for the Congress and its allies. Going by its track record in the General Elections, Karnataka has been known to vote differently from the rest of the nation. Even in 1996, when Karnataka chief minister H.D. Deve Gowda became the prime minister with 16 Lok Sabha seats from the state for his Janata Dal, the single-largest party in the Lok Sabha was the Congress. In 2014, the state is once again likely to vote differently from the rest of the country, and the UPA is set to score much higher than the NDA.

The BJP government's involvement in corruption and sex scandals over the last five years is a major reason why it has lost a significant portion of its urban vote bank in the state. While one minister was accused of rape, two others were caught watching porn on the floor of the legislative Assembly and another minister publicly played out a charade with his wife and a mistress. Besides, a dozen ministers including Yeddyurappa, were accused of land grabbing, cheating and corruption. The result is an all-time low for the party's image. Even the RSS, BJP's mainstay for electioneering, is finding it difficult to put its heart and soul into the campaigning this time.

The constant scramble for ministerial berths among the party MLAs and its independent supporters and the public display of money power to "purchaseâ€� MLAs under Operation Kamala to ensure the government stays in power has resulted in the BJP's "party with a difference'' image being ground to dust. In contrast, Congress appears to be a strong alternative, particularly as the previous Congress government under S.M. Krishna did a lot for Bangalore and had a much cleaner image than what the BJP currently has.